Tom Cruise has been a movie star for decades, but one doesn’t reach that level of success without learning a few things along the way. The star has been able to do a lot, and he’s shared some of the things he’s learned with his other co-stars, including his longtime Mission: Impossible collaborator Ving Rhames.
Speaking with Fox News, Rhames revealed one piece of advice he got from the actor, which he has always tried to follow. It’s an obviously simple one, but certainly not something that everybody does. The advice was…
Treat each person fairly.
It’s a slightly more family-friendly way to follow a similar piece of advice that Keanu Reeves recently gave to up-and-coming actors. The John Wick star suggested “don’t be a—-le” as the advice he wanted to see others in Hollywood follow.
They’re two different ways of saying the same thing. While Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves may be movie stars, people who clearly have achieved a level of success that gives them authority over others on a movie set, it seems both make a concerted effort not to act as if they are above the rest of the cast and crew.
Rhames also has his own advice that has served him well through his years in the film industry, which involves putting a proper amount of distance between himself and the world of Hollywood. He said…
[One big piece of advice is] to be in Hollywood, not of Hollywood. And that's just from years of experience.
A fair number of stars over the last several years are actually not in Hollywood at all, as many celebs, from Mark Wahlberg to Ryan Reynolds to Matthew McConaughey, don’t live in Southern California anymore. While this might seem to move counter to Rhames perspective, the implication from many is that their decision to leave involved making sure they were not of Hollywood in exactly the way the actor describes. So they’re really following the same advice, just in a different way.
Whether or not Ving Rhames will be in a position to get more great advice from Tom Cruise remains to be seen. As far as we know, the Mission: Impossible franchise is officially done. If that is the case, Rhames admits he will miss making the movies with his co-star. Apparently those conversations about the industry will be what the actor misses the most. He continued…
[My favorite memories] are talking to him off-stage. Learning secrets he knew about the industry that he was able to talk to me about.
Tom Cruise has plenty of other upcoming movies, and based on the fact that he tries to treat everybody fairly, that certainly means passing on what he’s learned about Hollywood to other co-stars.
